Comments on FutureGrid

1. Comments on FutureGrid Geoffrey Fox Indiana University 15 November 2011

2. What is FutureGrid? • The FutureGrid project mission is to enable experimental work that advances: • Innovation and scientific understanding of distributed computing and parallel computing paradigms, • The engineering science of middleware that enables these paradigms, • The use and drivers of these paradigms by important applications, and, • The education of a new generation of students and workforce on the use of these paradigms and their applications. • The implementation of mission includes • Distributed flexible hardware with supported use • Identified IaaS and PaaS “core” software with supported use • Expect growing list of software from FG partners and users • Outreach

3. Backdrop • NSF sent 15 months funding for FutureGrid August 12 2011 covering • October 1 2010 to December 31 2011 • PY2 contracts with increased effort in support (finally) in place • Set up skeleton user support to be filled in by hires in next 3 weeks • Substantial discussions on relation to XSEDE • Project submission through XSEDE planned • Filed contribution to XSEDE October 1 quarterly • Day long “All Hands” Software meeting September 22 • When new hires in place , will have • All Hands User Support meeting • Internal Tutorial on systems and software including IaaS and PaaS

4. Focus on the community impact around the experimental computer science and technology evaluation/exploration facility uniquely provided by this project • Reuse of the hardware money to support additional user support and outreach to the computer science community – defined both by the project management and UAB as critical for maximizing FG’s impact. • NSF and IU approval obtained (it was match money); funding released; setting up letters and interviews with applicants • Two jobs – consultant and outreach • Ensure effort allocated to partners within the project is delivered and there are mechanisms for demonstrating it (e.g. local site system administration effort, software development effort, etc.) • Software tracked in Jira • Will add support effort tracking to Jira • Statements of work and PEP define activities. Delay in PY2 funding delayed some activities • Leverage other dissemination routes (e.g. technology providers, software developers) to communicate with new communities through their peers • Tutorials, Papers etc. at meetings • Project request through XSEDE portal • 76 people ran Nimbus on FutureGrid at Sunday tutorial ; Expt CS workshop Friday at SC11 • Put systems in place to ensure feedback from the current user community is tracked and can be seen to be resolved (transparency & impact) • User survey designed; will be released end of month • Better monitoring of tickets – new hires will help • Make viewing of ticket system open

5. Determine the prioritized objectives of the project • Ensure the project plan balances the resources in the project to these objectives • Redirecting resources to support of users and popular software platforms • Establish metrics around these objectives so that their success and impact can be tracked • Track use of software systems from IaaS to Paas (Nimbus, Eucalyptus, Openstack, MapReduce, Saga, Genesis, Globus) • Demonstrate that the project resources (e.g. staff) that are being expended by partners demonstrate a return towards the project objectives • Jira and PEP (WBS) • Define who you need to get on board as users to be successful (e.g. measure of success around papers?) and provide a strategy to seek out and attract these users • We have online project results and will align to XSEDE metrics • User support will proactively get results including papers published • Current outreach strategy is talks, tutorials • Focus on the experimental CS aspects on FG resources and collaborate with XSEDE on the support of application science • PY2: 118 non system projects approved, 9 EOT, 3 Interoperability, 15 non life science app, 21 Life Science, 56 CS, 32 Tech evaluation (multiple tags) • The requirements around the use of FG by XSEDE and XSEDE by FG need to be defined by both sides and it is encouraging to see these discussions have started • Work continuing; privileged access process for FutureGrid defined

6. Enhancements in software packages supported by FG need to demonstrate that there is an impact from the investment made • Define metrics to show that this investment brings in new users (e.g. project activities enabled by the enhanced software environment) • Largest single investment is Nimbus; its use reflects improvement • Show that the software engineering activity is linked back to user requests so as to avoid image that the software development is not FG user focused • Day long software meeting in September to refocus plans • Naturally software effort (dollars) moving to support as project “matures”

7. It is not evident that the project management has a public project plan that they are implementing and tracking • Currently PEP and biweeklies are publicly available • Will make tickets public • Add support as well as software to Jira • Ensure allocated staff resources are committed by the sites to the objectives agreed by the project and defined in the WBS • WBS in PEP; SoW’s and biweeklies aligned to PEP & JIra • Develop a clear revised WBS that has an allocation of resources against the objectives of the project • PY3 PEP • Ensure there is transparency around the allocation and availability of the resources • Not certain what isn’t transparent • Projects and results open